The Insider's Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s

The first step to reducing your medical debt is asking your doc or hospital to reduce your bill. This takes time, chutzpah, and smarts and is worth the work.

Asking for a discounted bill can sound impossible but it’s not. Here’s why: The cost of medical procedures, doctor’s time, and hospital services are not set in stone. In fact, different patients are even billed different prices for the same services. Walking into a doc’s office or hospital is not like walking into McDonald’s where a Big Mac costs the same for everyone in line. With medical care, different people get charged different rates and your rates can be negotiated. After all, negotiating rates is exactly what insurance companies do and you can do it for yourself too!

The National Endowment for Financial Education has a great brochure ‘Avoiding and Managing Medical Debt’. These tips on how to ask for a reduced medical bill are based on their expert advice:

1. Have a positive attitude. Your odds are good: 50% of people who ask for reduced costs get them, plus using these strategies give you an extra advantage.

2. Talk to the right person, face-to-face: Don’t do it by phone or letter. Talk in-person to your doc, your doc’s or hospital’s office, business, or billing manager.

3. Honey goes farther than vinegar. Be polite. Kill’em with kindness.

4. Be persistent. Don’t take no for an answer. (I never do!) Many hospital staff don’t know the correct policies and will say ‘no’ when they should say ‘yes’. Work your way up the ladder.

The American Hospital Association has a Billing and Collections Practices Policy. 4,200 hospitals have signed on agreeing to: a.) assist patients who can’t pay for all or part of their care, b.) make these policies accessible and written in clear language. Visit this link, click on ‘more than 4,200′. If your hospital is on the list, present this info in defense of your request.

6. Contact your State Attorney General. If you’re at a non-profit hospital, many state AG’s will help ensure they provide charity care. Find your State AG here.

7. Compare costs. Conduct research to find out what patients with insurance or Medicare are paying for your same procedure codes. Demand the same rate.

8. Offer to pay part upfront. Billing departments need cash from patients who often can’t paying anything at all. Bargain for a discount in exchange for paying something upfront. Will they cut in half a $15,000 bill if you give them $800 upfront? Maybe.

9. Get it in writing. When they agree to your request, get it in writing!

Does haggling for reduced costs excite or intimidate you? Have you ever done it?

For grants, financial assistance, and money saving tips download for free the first chapter of Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s. Scroll down on the right side of this page for the yellow highlighted download link.

I like my body and I have no problem wearing short skits or low cut shirts. But as a young adult cancer patient I shudder at the exposure of a hospital gown.

I excel at finding new fashionable ways to tie on a hospital gown, using excess fabric to craft fancy bustles, pleats, and empire waistlines. My creations are often inspired by beat up copies of Vogues sitting next to me in the ladies waiting room.

Despite my loathing for hospital gowns, I recognize that those fly-away openings and simple, barely-there closures exist for easy access. In the end, forget designer garbs, I’d rather docs be able to access my body – especially in case of emergency.

An article in the Wall Street Journal today describes a new grant by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation that will support the creation of new hospital wear. They also report on the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey that commissioned new hospital wear by designer Nicole Miller. The argument exists that new privacy promoting gowns that will boost patient morale.

None of us want our asses hanging out as we stroll the unit with our poles. And, I think patient moral is incredibly important – it helps us comply with doctors orders. But, I think our moral suffers way more from administrative issues, cost issues, and lack of face time with doctors. Given that these new fashion gowns will cost more money to produce and purchase, I say the Robert Woods Johnson foundation and hospitals find other ways to spend their time, dough, and new discovery resources.

What do you think? How important is it to you that we design new hospital gowns? What do you think about current gowns? If you were to redesign an new gown what would it look like? Share any good hospital gown stories you have.